Suspension
by BeTrueToThyself
Summary: Tag to Season 8 finale (includes spoilers). Dean talks to an unconscious Sam. "He couldn't tear his gaze off his little brother lying in that bed. To look away meant he might disappear; he might up and dissolve in all the ways that mattered." Complete.


A/N: I'm more active over on the AO3 lately. This fic is crossposted there under a different pseudonym.

**Suspension**

Dean leaned against the doorjamb, his shoulders drawn so tight he couldn't feel them anymore. His eyes were creased around the edges, and his mouth had turned downward into a near-permanent streak of tension. The hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans curled into fists. He couldn't tear his gaze off his little brother lying in that bed. To look away meant he might disappear; he might up and dissolve in all the ways that mattered.

The edge of the jamb was gouging a rut into his right shoulder, but he couldn't move. He didn't know how long he'd been standing there; he didn't know what the passage of time felt like anymore. All he knew was that Sam's chest was still rising and falling with his breathing. Sam was still alive.

Even as the angels were Falling all around them, slamming craters into the Earth like some ancient mass-extinction event, he'd packed Sam into the Impala and drove toward safety. He didn't look back, not for Crowley, not for Cas, and not for the Fallen. He drove, magnetized to the only fixed location left on the planet that he could call safe, that he could call home. He didn't dare turn on any music, not when he could only just hear Sam's hitched breaths over the car's rumble. That was all the music he needed.

Sam had barely managed to help get himself into the Impala before he passed out from the pain. Dean could imagine – and tried not to, but he had thoughts only for Sam – what kind of pain could breach thresholds forged by Hell. But the human body had limits that souls didn't. After a point, the brain's internal mechanisms cut off consciousness to save itself. Surely that must be true.

That's what he repeated in his head all those hours he drove and listened to Sam breathe. No other option remained but to believe his brother would be okay. He had to be.

And yet, here in the doorway Dean had stood, the only thing keeping him on his feet this immovable wall, for what had to be days and days, weeks and weeks. They blurred one into the other, the caring of his brother, the reading for answers, and always, always the time he spent standing here, afraid to step forward and afraid to move back. He hung suspended while Sam hesitated over death or life.

Dean stared at his brother and thought about the uselessness now of prayer. With no one left to listen, did the desperate hope of his heart have any meaning left, any power to touch the forces hanging in this room? Wordless, was his hope worth anything?

He shoved off and stood straight, the movement sudden as the stirring of a long-dead mummy in a tomb. He shuffled over to the chair at Sam's bedside and slid into it, his strings cut and his limbs sedation-heavy. He took in his brother's face, more familiar than his own and 10 times as beloved.

His hand lifted into the air inch by inch and then settled, curling around Sam's wasted fingers.

"Sammy," he breathed, his voice hoarse from the long silence. The one word cracked within him, and his dried eyes filled with clean tears.

"Can you hear me, Sammy?" He curled his grip tighter around that precious hand. "Sammy, you've gotta come back to me. I need you." He swallowed and blinked back tears. Wordless, his hope had done nothing but maintain the status quo. Something had to change. So he would make it change.

He took a deep breath and tried again. "This is well past the edge of chick flick territory, bro. But I'll do what I have to for you, even this. Any way to reach you, I'll try it." He gave a weak smile of encouragement, but it was for his own benefit and no one else's. He let the effort fade.

His sigh seemed loud in the underground room. "I never just talk to you, Sammy. You must think I'm possessed or something. Dean Winchester, talking about his feelings? More impossible than the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, right? But I will do anything for you, Sammy. Anything.

"I hope you're listening. I hope somehow inside that melon of yours, you're registering my voice. I just... I need you to hear me, Sammy. I need you to wake up. If you... if you just stay in that coma forever, I don't know what I'll do.

"Kevin's gone. I don't know what happened to Cas. The angels have Fallen, the Hell gates are still open, and all I have left is this bunker, the Impala – and you."

He scrubbed at his eyes with his free hand and heaved a breath. "That's it, Sammy. That's really it. Nothing else means a thing. I've got _you_. I've _got_ you. I told you I may not be able to carry the weight of those Trials, but I could carry you. I meant it.

"I want to tell you that you can take your time getting better, but I can't do it. You've been unconscious long enough, Sleeping Beauty. It's time to wake up now."

He paused and lifted that thin, precious hand to the ache in his chest, curling around it. "Please, Sammy," he whispered.

"Please wake up."


End file.
